Artie Lange returns to HBO’s ‘Crashing’ for season 3. ‘Nobody’s funnier,’ Pete Holmes says, but his nose was an obstacle

Updated January 21, 2019 at 3:07 PM;Posted January 20, 2019 at 11:00 AM

Artie Lange, at right, with Estee Adoram, the booker at the Comedy Cellar in New York, and comedians Rachel Feinstein and Dan Naturman in the season three premiere of HBO's "Crashing," airing Sunday. (Craig Blankenhorn | HBO)

As fellow comedians plead with Artie Lange to seek help for drug addiction, the Jersey funnyman is back on HBO Sunday to reprise his role in the series “Crashing.”

Lange, 51, who is known for spending eight years as an on-air personality for “The Howard Stern Show,” has had a recurring role on the show for two seasons. In the season three premiere, he returns to play a version of himself as an unofficial mentor to series star Pete Holmes, who plays a comedian trying to make it in New York.

In the season premiere (caution: spoilers ahead), Holmes' character auditions in front of the Comedy Cellar’s real-life booker, Estee Adoram, after waiting for six months for his shot. He seems to do well with his set and the audience, but Adoram rejects him, telling him he’s not ready.

Meanwhile, young, green comedian Jaboukie Young-White (the real-life “senior youth correspondent” at “The Daily Show”), who opened for Holmes at a college show and came to New York on his invitation, manages to win over Adoram with his own set.

Outside the club, Lange approaches a disappointed Holmes to tell him that he saw the set that failed to impress Adoram.

“You’re clearly upset,” he tells Holmes. “Let’s work through this.” The comedy veteran takes Holmes to work out his frustration with ... a racquetball session.

“There’s ups and downs,” he tells Holmes while they’re on the court. “Look at me. Is there any more proof that things can get better?” With that, he tosses his racket in the air — a far cry from the Lange character who weathered a drug relapse in the second season.

In the season trailer below, Lange can be seen briefly, at the 1:36 and 1:53 marks.

Caution: the videos below contain explicit language

Before this season, Lange had appeared in nine episodes of “Crashing.” During the first season of the show, he became the first of many guest star comedians.

“Nobody’s funnier,” Holmes said of Lange on Tuesday’s “Jim Norton & Sam Roberts" on SiriusXM. “He kills scenes. I’ve said many times I think a big reason our pilot got picked up was because of his performance in the pilot, which he improvised. At the end, everyone applauded."

At left: Comedian Artie Lange in court on Dec.14 in Newark. He tested positive for cocaine the same day. At right: Lange in February of 2017, when "Crashing" debuted on HBO.

Lange’s nose, which now appears deflated due to his lack of a septum, was damaged from years of snorting cocaine and heroin. This detail, which was not a factor when Lange first joined the show, proved to be unavoidable during the filming of the latest season, Holmes said during the radio interview.

“From scene to scene, there was nose continuity issues,” he said. “My heart breaks for Artie.”

Lange was sentenced to four years of probation in June after he pleaded guilty to heroin possession in connection with a May 2017 arrest after State Police found him with 81 decks of heroin on the Garden State Parkway. Last month, Lange, who had recently emerged from a short stint in rehab, again faced the possibility of up to five years in jail for violations of his probation when he tested positive for drugs. But a judge recommended Lange for drug court instead.

In a July interview with NJ Advance Media, Lange compared his pairing with the stalky Holmes to Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in the 1969 film “Midnight Cowboy" — he’s the streetwise “Fatso” Rizzo to Holmes' naive Joe Buck.

“We look so different and it’s kind of comical,” he said.

The season premiere of “Crashing” airs at 10 p.m. on HBO Sunday, Jan. 20.

Here’s a clip from the “Artie” episode of “Crashing” that aired in 2018.